The eve of the world’s biggest rock & roll conference might just be the perfect place for inevitable indie film legend John Sayles, the writer/director behind Lone Star, The Secret of Roan Inish, and Men With Guns, to talk about his most recently wrapped project. The underlying theme of Honeydripper, set in 1950s Alabama, might be the one thing every musician with any kind of longevity faces at some point.
“It’s kind of about the way the music moves on and it’s your choice: Do you move on with it or not?,” he explains. “If you were a blues player do you just say, ‘No, I’m not going into this rock & roll thing.’ If you’re a jazz player do you say, ‘No, I’m not going to play this more abstract jazz, I’m going to keep playing bebop.’ Whatever it is that you do, when the change comes, do you just say, ‘Well that’s interesting but not for me.'”
Based on the short story “Keeping Time” written by Sayles himself, Honeydripper features locally lauded but nationally unknown Gary Clark Jr. as a guitar player in the second lead behind Danny Glover. Clark, who has no previous acting experience, was the beneficiary of simply being a musician.
“We had this very specific thing: We want players to play in the movie,” says Sayles. “We don’t want them to lip-synch or pretend they’re playing. There just aren’t that many young African-Americans playing that kind of guitar. You know Robert Cray is not a kid anymore.”
Sayles was also keenly aware that history is more than just an arbitrary backdrop to Honeydripper.
“The Fifties were a time when jump music and big band music were still kind of around, then very quickly rock & roll came along. And people thought it really wasn’t going to last more than a year or two. ‘It’s Mickey Mouse stuff and it’s not going to be here. Little kids listen to it.’
“Then it just took over.”
This article appears in March 16 • 2007.